


The Ghost and Mr Temple

by fredbassett



Series: Ghost Ryan [3]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 21:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18507091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: Connor begins to suspect that something strange is going on.





	1. Chapter 1

Connor leaned back in his chair and stared at the Anomaly Detection Device’s bank of screens. He’d been working for the last five hours on some improvements to the system and had declined a lift home from Abby, preferring to work on through the evening, enjoying the relative peace and quiet of the late shift.

The screens flickered and Connor sucked in a quick breath. He’d been struggling with reliability issues for a couple of months and every time he thought he’d got the problems cracked, something else would go wrong. It seemed to be a perpetual game of one step forward, two steps back. The flickering stopped and Connor let out the breath he’d been holding.

A waft of cold air raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Connor shivered, turning around to see if anyone had left open the doors to the cavernous internal garage. He’d never quite got his head around the design of the building, including why the central area needed a pair of doors that wouldn’t have been out of place in an aircraft hanger. The heating bills would be horrendous, especially in the cold snap that had been causing chaos in the south of England for the past few weeks.

The doors were firmly closed, providing no clue as to where the draught was coming from. Connor pulled up the collar on his jacket and considered going to get a coffee and something to eat. It was nearly midnight and there was no way he’d bother going home now. He knew he should get some sleep, not inject more caffeine into his already hyped-up system, but he was hungry and thirsty, and everyone was always telling him that commonsense wasn’t his strongest suit…

Movement caught the corner of his eye and Connor looked up to find a black-clad figure looking down at him from the top of the ramp that led up to Lester’s office. It looked like he wasn’t the only one working late. The soldier turned away before Connor could work out who it was and he tried to quell the uncomfortable fluttering feeling in his stomach. It had been three months since Ryan’s death and the pain still seemed as raw as ever. He’d thrown himself into his work but it hadn’t helped. He still woke up every day with that same gut-wrenching feeling of loss and he dreamed of Ryan as well. There were even times – like now – when he thought he’d caught a glimpse of Ryan.

Tears formed in Connor’s eyes and he dashed them away on the back of his woollen gloves. He’d never imagined that someone like Ryan would have been interested in him. Hell, he’d never imagined for a moment that Ryan had even been gay. Connor had known since he’d been at school that he was attracted to men – or boys at that point – rather than the opposite sex, but it wasn’t something he’d ever talked about or acted on. University had been the same. He stayed so firmly in the closet that even his closest friends had no idea which way he swung. Not that Tom and Duncan had done any better when it came to romance, so at least he’d been in good company in that respect and his lack of a girlfriend had never been any cause for comment.

Then the anomalies had entered his life and everything had changed. It had been fun at first but then they’d encountered the dodos and their deadly parasites, and Tom had died. After that, Connor had thought life would never be fun again. He had his friend’s death on his conscience and nothing Cutter or anyone else said could change that. But then another Tom had taken him out for a drink after work and the soldier had done what no one else had, he’d actually listened to him. Captain Tom Ryan, macho tough guy extraordinaire, had sat there in the Black Swan and had really listened. Not interrupting, not telling him that it hadn’t been his fault, not fobbing him off with platitudes. Just listening. At the end of the evening, when Connor had finally unloaded all the thoughts that had been buzzing around in his mind like a swarm of angry bees, the soldier had simply bought him another pint and agreed that sometimes life just sucked. There’d been nothing deep or profound about anything he’d said, but Connor had felt a bit better afterwards and a few days later when Ryan had asked him out for a drink again, he’d gone. Drinks had progressed to trips to the cinema and film nights, then a meal at an Italian restaurant instead of a takeaway.

By the time he and Ryan had become an item, the only person who had been surprised was Connor.

And then Ryan had been rushed back through an anomaly on a stretcher and Connor had felt like someone had torn his heart out of his chest and stamped on it. Ryan had died and that feeling hadn’t gone away, and sometimes he wondered if it ever would.

“Coffee.” The single word was quietly spoken, but it was enough to make Connor jump, let out an undignified yelp and nearly fall off his chair.

He glared up at Becker. “I’m going tie a collar on you with a bell on it!”

“Miaow,” Becker grinned, clearly unrepentant, leaving Connor wondering how the hell the guy managed to move so quietly in army boots. Ryan had been just as bad…

Every single screen flickered at once and one of them went black.

“Shit!” Connor rarely swore, but he really didn’t need any more hassle. Couldn’t the sodding machine just behave nicely for once, was that really too much to ask?

He noticed Becker’s eyes stray to the ramp for a moment and caught a flash of dark movement on the first floor then the offending screen blinked back to life, claiming his attention.

“Coffee,” Becker said, more firmly this time, when Connor had finished running another set of diagnostics and had found nothing wrong with the machine.

“Yes, mum.” Connor stared thoughtfully at the screens. “What’s the bloody matter with this place?” It was a rhetorical question and Becker clearly knew him well enough not to answer it. Ryan had been good like that as well, always knowing when to just let him babble on…

Two screens went blank in front of him and at the same time the wail of the ADD alarm ripped through the silence of the atrium.

Connor slammed his fist down on the desk in front of him, making coffee slop over the rim of the mug. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and tossed it in the direction of the spreading brown puddle. “This is really starting to piss me off!”

It was a false alarm, but it took him ten minutes to turn the noise off and convince the Special Forces contingent that they could go back to the bunkrooms. While all that was going on, Becker hovered protectively at his side. With a wry grin, Connor wondered what it was about him that seemed to attract the strong silent types. Not that he’d been thinking of Becker that way, God no, the man would probably do something very threatening with his favourite gun if he knew that the thought had even crossed Connor’s mind, which it hadn’t, not at all, not even when he’d seen the captain in the showers…

The alarm blared again and Connor gave up any pretence of self-control and swore violently before diving under the desk to rip the plug out of the socket. His knee landed on something hard that wasn’t the floor and he swore again even more creatively. Bloody hell, he’d been hanging around soldiers far too long if he’d picked up language like that! He rolled onto his side, holding the plug up in triumph and looked down to realise that what his knee had landed on was actually his pocket compass. It must have been pulled out when he’d chucked his handkerchief at the coffee spillage.

The needle was spinning wildly on its axis.

Connor picked it up and the needle continued to spin. “Bloody hell,” he breathed. “I’m a complete idiot.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite that strongly,” Becker commented. “But I’d get that thing plugged back in, if I were you.”

“Yeah, right.” Connor slammed the plug back into the socket, his attention still focussed on the compass. Gradually, the needle stopped spinning and returned to normal. Connor clambered back to his feet and stared at Becker in amazement. “Magnetic spikes! That’s what’s causing the problems. Why the hell didn’t I figure that out before?”

“You hadn’t just knelt on a compass?” Becker hazarded. “Why are we getting magnetic spikes in the ARC?”

“I have no bloody idea,” Connor admitted. “But now I know what it is, all I have to do is fit a big enough spike suppressor and we’ll be back in business!” He grinned and high-fived Becker. The young captain laughed and slapped his hand against Connor’s palm. In Connor’s other hand, the compass needle started to spin again…

This time Connor slid to the floor and hauled the plug for the power supply out of the socket without damaging his knee in the process.

* * * * *

Two days later, Connor had the biggest mainspike suppressor he could lay his hands on fitted to the ADD. When that seemed to be working satisfactorily he did the same thing with the CCTV cameras and started to extend the suppressors to the other computer systems as well. Lester grumbled half-heartedly about the expense but even Connor could see that his complaints were more about keeping up appearances than anything else.

What Connor still couldn’t fathom out, though, was what was causing the magnetic spikes in the first place. He’d taken to wearing a compass on his wrist like a watch, but there seemed to be no pattern to the occurrences – or at least no pattern that made sense. He still hadn’t been able to do anything to stop the kettles in the recreation room blowing up with monotonous regularity but that was a minor annoyance in comparison with the chaos that a constantly malfunctioning ADD had caused.

“Fancy a drink tonight, genius?”

Connor looked up from his keyboard and grinned at Becker. He’d been so wrapped up in his work over the past few days that he’d totally forgotten it was Friday. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

At 6.30pm, after an uneventful afternoon, Connor handed over control of the ADD to a duty technician and went off for a quick visit to the loo en route to the recreation room. As he opened the door into the corridor the sight of a black-uniformed figure in the distance made his heart give a slight jump in his chest. Connor shook his head ruefully and wondered if there was any suppressor available for his emotions. Or at least one that didn’t involve large amounts of alcohol and a hangover the following morning. He worked with soldiers day in, day out, and had thought – or more accurately hoped – that he was making progress but every now and then something would come back to haunt him…

The corridor lights flickered. Connor looked down at the compass on his wrist and saw the needle rotating madly. A shiver ran down his spine. This was getting beyond the realm of coincidence.

A door banged further down the corridor and one of the cleaners hurried out of the loos looking like he’d just had a nasty fright. Connor walked towards the toilets, keeping an eye on the compass as the needle continued to spin. He pushed open the door and stared around the room, seeing absolutely nothing to account for the look on cleaner’s face as he’d dashed out. Four stalls stood empty, their doors partly open. The urinals were unoccupied. The sound of running water drew Connor’s attention to the washbasins. It looked like the cleaner had scarpered without turning one of the taps off. He dealt with the running tap, then stood at one of the urinals while he relieved himself.

Behind him, he heard footsteps on the tiled floor. Connor’s fingers prickled slightly the way they did when he got nervous. He hadn’t heard the outer door open and the toilet stalls had all been unoccupied so how come someone was now in the room with him? He shook himself off as casually as he could manage, noticing that the compass strapped to his right wrist was still behaving erratically, zipped his jeans up and turned around. The room was empty.

His heart hammered uncomfortably in his chest. He’d been certain he’d heard footsteps – the sort he associated with the heavy black boots the soldiers wore. Hell, he’d been around someone who wore boots like that for long enough…

Almost unconsciously, he looked up as, right on cue, the fluorescent strip light started to hum in the way they always did just before a tube was about to blow. A moment later the light cut out, leaving him with nothing more than the faint green glow of the emergency lighting. Connor stared around him and forced himself to stand still, fighting against an overwhelming urge to bolt for the door. This was stupid. He wasn’t a kid, he hadn’t been watching too many horror films and he was not going to bolt like a frightened rabbit. He was going to wash his hands, walk calmly outside and report yet another fault in the lighting system.

Connor walked over to the washbasins, quite pleased with his resolve, and then made the fatal mistake of looking in the mirror. In the semi-darkness, he saw a dark shape behind him, half-turned away from him. The face was in shadow, but Connor would have known that profile anywhere.

He turned around sharply and found himself staring into the darkness of an empty room. He clenched his fists hard to stop his hands shaking. He knew, without needing to look, that the compass needle was still gyrating.

Light suddenly flooded into the room. He blinked and glanced at the door. Becker was standing there, dressed casually in jeans and a brown leather jacket, staring at him. “Connor?”

“The light’s blown,” Connor said, surprising himself by managing to keep his voice steady even though he felt like he’d just run a marathon.

Becker simply nodded and leaned against the door, holding it open while Connor washed his hands. When he finished, Becker commented, “I’ll be with you in a minute, mate, I just need a quick slash.”

“Do you want me to hold the door open?”

The Special Forces captain grinned. “I reckon I can find my own dick in the dark. Tell maintenance the light needs fixing and I’ll catch up with you in the atrium.”

Connor nodded and stepped back into the corridor, letting the door swing closed. Without quite knowing why, he stayed where he was, staring at the pale grey door. A moment later, he heard the low murmur of Becker’s voice, talking to someone. But the soldier hadn’t been wearing his radio. Connor reached out and gently turned the door handle, easing the door open an inch. The partition that shielded the interior of the toilets from the eyes of anyone passing by in the corridor while the door was open blocked his view, but he could now hear Becker’s words more clearly.

“You’re going to give someone a heart attack if you’re not careful.” The young captain’s voice held a mixture of amusement and exasperation. There was a silence, then Becker said, “He needs a break from this place. I was going to take him out for a drink, if that’s OK?”

For a moment, Connor wondered if Becker was talking to Abby on his mobile phone, but she’d left about half an hour ago with Jenny, declaring that they were going for a girly night out with Lester’s secretary and there was no reason at all why Becker would have been seeking her approval. In the silence that followed Becker’s question, a draught of cold air came from somewhere and raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Connor stared around him, conscious of the fact that he’d started to sweat.

Connor heard a tap running and then Becker laughed softly. “Yeah, scout’s honour, I’ll make sure he gets home safely.”

On impulse, Connor pushed the door fully open and stepped quickly around the partition. Becker had a paper towel crumpled in his hands as he balled it up and tossed it accurately into the waste bin. The hand-dryers were as unreliable as every other piece of electrical equipment in the ARC and Norman had recently installed towel dispensers in all of the toilets.

Becker glanced at him and Connor knew a guilty look when he saw one. The soldier had both hands occupied and couldn’t have been talking to someone on a mobile phone, and he definitely wasn’t wearing an ear-piece or a throat mike.

“Thought I’d dropped my phone,” Connor mumbled, staring around at the floor before bolting back out into the corridor and hurrying back to the atrium. By the time Becker caught up with him, he’d hauled his phone out of his pocket and slid it on the floor under the ADD. He grabbed it, plastered a goofy grin on his face and muttered, “Found you!” It couldn’t exactly be described as an Oscar winning performance, but it was the best he could muster.

* * * * *

The Black Swan was fairly empty for a Friday night. It looked like the off-duty soldiers had headed into town for a curry and the rest of the regulars obviously hadn’t been inclined to brave the freezing temperatures and rain that was showing an unhealthy tendency to degenerate into sleet.

Equipped with two pints of beer and a large packet of peanuts, Connor and Becler settled down at a corner table where the soldier could indulge his Special Forces paranoia and face the room with a wall at his back. Connor knew the drill well enough. He should do after the months he’d spent with Ryan. He glanced down, half-expecting the compass needle to start spinning. It gave a quick twitch, but settled down almost immediately.

“You look like someone who’s lost a pound and found sixpence,” Becker commented quietly. “I thought you’d be like a dog with two tails now that your baby’s not sending us on a wild goose chase every five minutes.”

In spite of himself, Connor grinned. “Neat, isn’t it? Lester bitched about the cost, but it seems to be working. I’m going to rig one up in the flat and see if I can use it to stop the telly playing up all the time.”

“What do you think is causing it?”

Connor shrugged. “I wish I knew. I wondered at first if it was some sort of static charge we were bringing back from the anomalies but…” he shrugged again and trailed off. What he really thought seemed too far-fetched, even for someone who dealt with dinosaurs for a living…

As a displacement activity, he ripped open the packet of peanuts and tipped a handful into his palm. Becker did the same and by mutual assent they steered the conversation onto other topics. Ones that didn’t make the hairs on the back of Connor’s neck stand up.

The Special Forces captain was as good as his word – although who he’d given it to, Connor didn’t know – and when they spectacularly failed to find a taxi, Becker actually walked him home, in spite of Connor’s protestations that he’d be fine on his own and that Becker’s flat was in the opposite direction. They arrived back at Abby’s place soaked to the skin and it seemed only the right thing to do to invite Becker in for a coffee.

As they piled, dripping wet, into the hall, Connor’s phone bleeped. The message was from Abby and read: No taxis. Staying at Jenny’s. C U tomorrow. It looked like they hadn’t been the only ones having problems. He kicked off his shoes and padded into the kitchen in damp socks, leaving wet footprints on the parquet flooring. Rex swooped down from one of the beams, chattering at him in welcome. Connor put the kettle on and chopped up an apple that he deposited into the lizard’s food bowl. Rex munched appreciatively. Over the last month or so, Becker had been a reasonably frequent visitor to the flat, mainly on Friday nights after the pub, and the coeleosaurovus no longer displayed any nervousness in his presence.

“I’ll fetch a towel,” Connor commented as Becker pushed his wet hair out of his eyes, looking – for once – not quite his usual immaculate self.

The flat was warm, heated to an extent that allowed Rex reasonable freedom of movement, but even so, it had been bloody freezing outside. Connor left Becker making the coffee and went in search of dry clothes for himself and a towel for Becker. He quickly changed into a sweatshirt and dry jeans and wondered if he had anything that would fit Becker. The soldier was several inches taller than him, with wider shoulders, a deeper chest and longer arms… His eyes fell on a dark blue shirt on a shelf in the wardrobe. He hadn’t even realised that he still had any of Ryan’s clothes in the flat.

Connor reached out and ran his fingers tentatively over the soft brushed cotton. Tears pricked at his eyes. He pulled the shirt off the shelf and buried his face in the material. It was clean, but if he closed his eyes and inhaled really deeply, he could almost smell Ryan’s own scent, a blend of citrus shower gel and cordite and something that was uniquely, indefinably… Ryan.

It had been a long week. He was knackered, over-emotional and suddenly felt like shit. He clutched the shirt like a teddy bear and felt tears start to trickle out of his eyes and down his cheeks. He missed Ryan. He missed him so bloody much it was like having a spike in his guts the whole time. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he immersed himself in the work of the anomaly project it just all kept coming crashing back.

Memories crowded into his mind of the soldiers rushing back through the anomaly carrying Ryan’s broken, bloodied body on a makeshift stretcher. Ditzy’s calm voice giving orders. Stephen at Connor’s side, his arm protectively around his shaking shoulders. Abby holding his hand. The stricken look on Cutter’s face. Everyone trying to sound positive and hopeful, right up to the moment when the doctor at the hospital had told him that Ryan had been pronounced dead on arrival, in spite of Ditzy’s best efforts at resuscitation. Connor had heard of people talking about the bottom dropping out of their worlds, but he’d never known what they meant, not until then. But afterwards, oh God, yes, he knew exactly what that phrase meant and he’d lived with that cold, hollow feeling every minute of the last three months and he was sick to bloody death of pretending that everything was all right.

It bloody well wasn’t all right. It would never be all right again. And if anyone gave him any shit about it being better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, he wouldn’t be answerable for his sodding actions. He buried his face in the shirt and sobbed. He felt strong hands on his shoulders and then fingers were combing through his wet hair, the way Ryan always used to do when he’d been upset about something and Connor gave up any pretence of stiff upper lip and simply buried his head against Becker’s chest and cried his heart out.

When he’d reached the stage of needing a handkerchief, Connor dropped a hand to his pocket and took a step back, his eyes still closed against the embarrassment of having cried like a big kid in the arms of one of his colleagues. When he opened them, Becker had gone. Connor grinned ruefully. He really was going to have to get the guy that belled collar.

He blew his nose, splashed cold water on his eyes his eyes in the bathroom and, still clutching Ryan’s shirt, took a large towel through to the kitchen. Becker accepted the towel with thanks and waved his hand at a steaming mug off coffee, giving no sign that he’d just hugged Connor while he’d cried his heart out.

Connor held out the shirt to Becker. “This might fit you, it was…” he hesitated then pushed the name out past the lump in his throat, “…Tom’s.”

The kettle suddenly started to crackle. Moving with a speed that had no doubt taken years of practice to achieve, Becker whipped it off the base, muttering, “No, you bloody well don’t!” He set the kettle back down on the work surface and glared at it. The object of his attention apparently thought better of malfunctioning again and remained quiescent, for which Connor was grateful. They were on their third kettle this month already.

Becker grinned at him. “I wish the ones in the rec room took as much notice.” He cocked his head slightly, regarding Connor quizzically, then said, “It’s all right, this teeshirt’ll dry out soon enough.”

“You’ve got goosebumps like bloody marbles,” Connor commented, with perfect truth. He held the shirt out again. “Take it, it’s OK, honestly. And… thanks…”

Becker quirked an eyebrow – and one day Connor would pluck up the courage to ask where he’d got the scar from – but took the shirt from him and stripped off his sopping wet and distinctly figure-hugging, teeshirt, and wrung it out over the sink, before rubbing the towel over his hair and chest and pulling on the dry shirt.

Connor’s breath hitched in his throat. Less than five minutes he’d had his nose buried in a dry teeshirt – wet with nothing more than his own tears – not the cold, damp thing Becker had just taken off. A shiver he couldn’t control ran down his spine and Connor took a step backwards, his eyes darting around him, not really sure what he expected to see, half-scared, half-hopeful. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and spun, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste.

“Connor?” Becker’s voice was hesitant. “Connor, are you…?”

“All right?” Connor demanded sharply. “No, I’m not fucking all right. If you must know, I don’t think I’ll ever be all right again!” He stared down at the compass on his wrist. The needle twitched. “My boyfriend died. You know that, you were brought in to replace him.” Another twitch. “His name was Tom Ryan. Captain Tom Ryan…”

“Connor…” There was no mistaking the plea in Becker’s voice now.

The compass needle started to flicker like a snake’s tongue and Connor felt a grin forming on his face even though the hairs on the back of his neck were starting rise.

“Captain Tom Ryan,” Connor repeated firmly. “How many times am I going to have to say it?” He stared challengingly at Becker. “I heard you talking to someone in the toilets, Becker. You promised you’d see me home safely. You weren’t talking to Abby, were you? You were talking to him. To my boyfriend. To my dead boyfriend.”

“Connor…” Becker’s voice was practically beseeching now.

If Connor was wrong he knew he was going to look a right twat, but he was willing to bet his entire set of Star Wars action figures on the fact that he wasn’t bloody wrong.

“Who else knows, Becker? Who else knows that the ARC is being haunted by the ghost of my boyfriend? Is that why Lester keeps having to hire new cleaning staff? Is that why everyone but me seems to go to the toilet in pairs the whole time, and not just the girls?” Things were falling into place now, things he didn’t even remember noticing at the time. He knew, without needing to look down that the compass had now started to behave as though it was in the presence of an anomaly. “When was anyone going to tell me what the hell’s been going on? When, Becker?” A sudden thought struck him. “Abby knows, doesn’t she?” He waved his hand angrily at Becker. “Don’t just say Connor again!”

“We didn’t want to make things worse for you,” Becker said quietly, with a resigned look on his face.

“Make things worse for me?” Connor laughed, his voice sounding harsh even in his own ears. “Like I just said, Becker. My boyfriend is dead. How the hell do you think anything could possibly make things worse?” A slight shimmer in the air next to the sink drew his attention. Connor stared hard, wondering if what he was seeing was a trick of the light or the product of his – admittedly feverish – imagination. The compass was now gyrating as wildly as he’d ever seen and the overhead light had started to flicker. The incongruous thought hit him that if the tube blew, they didn’t have a replacement. “Tom? I’m right, aren’t I? You were there, in the bedroom, weren’t you? You held me while I cried… I could touch you... I could bloody smell you! Tom…”

The haze started to coalesce in front of his eyes, deepening, solidifying, taking on features, wearing a face that Connor had never expected to see again outside of a photograph. Tears started to run down his face and he took a step forward, hand outstretched. “Tom…”

The fluorescent lighting tube shattered, showering pieces of glass and plastic across this kitchen. The microwave switched itself on without warning, the turntable starting to spin and then, a moment later, it exploded as well.

In the sudden silence that followed, Becker’s voice commented in the darkness of the kitchen, “I think we might be better off with a more controlled experiment next time, mate.”

And caught between tears and incredulous, hopeful laughter, Connor had to agree with him.


	2. Chapter 2

Connor hovered uncertainly in the doorway of Lester’s office, conscious of the fact that he was already shifting his weight from foot to foot, the way he always did when he was nervous. Even Becker’s usually comforting presence behind him wasn’t helping and Connor was beginning to wonder if he stood any chance of slinking quietly away without being noticed…

“Stop fidgeting and cross the threshold, Mr Temple,” Lester drawled. “When I last checked the personnel records there was no reference in your file to any aversion to sunlight and garlic, so I’m sure you’ll have no problem in taking that final step, but if it makes things any easier, do come in.”

“You watch Buffy?” Connor asked in surprise, as he edged into Lester’s office, feeling uncomfortably like he was somehow making the place look untidy.

Lester rolled his eyes. “No, I do not. Now, is there a point to this visitation? If not, I’m sure you have some electrical equipment that requires disassembling and I’m even more certain that Captain Becker has a piece of heavy artillery pining for his attention.”

“It’s about…” Connor hesitated and glanced up at the strip light above Lester’s desk. If that went pop Lester wouldn’t be a happy bunny. He cleared his throat nervously but before he could continue, another thought struck him. “Er, if you’ve got a document open on your computer, it might be a good idea to save it.”

With an irritated frown, Lester clicked his mouse a couple of times before he reached under the desk to turn the computer off and did the same with the screen. “There, does that satisfy you?”

Connor grinned. “Yeah, thanks.” His eyes slid past Lester to one corner of the room where the air seemed to have got slightly darker. If a shadow could be said to be giving him an encouraging look that one was.

“Yes…?” Lester’s tone was icily polite, but Connor was certain he could see a slight hint of amusement lurking in the man’s eyes.

“It’s about Ryan.” The words came out in a rush and to Connor’s amazement, the lights didn’t so much as flicker, but the compass on his wrist did start wavering slightly. “He’s…” Connor trailed off and hopped miserably from one foot to the other again. He should never have let Becker talk him into coming to see Lester, the man already thought he was a half-wit and this was only going to make things worse. He took a deep breath and started again. “He’s…” To Connor’s consternation, the shadow in the corner of the room was starting to solidify. If he didn’t get this one over with, Lester was going to discover what he was trying to tell him the hard way. “He’s…”

“Standing behind me, exercising remarkable restraint for once,” Lester finished helpfully, just as the shadow coalesced into the insubstantial – but wholly recognisable – form of Connor’s dead boyfriend.

Lester swivelled around in his chair to face the corner of the room, leaving Connor with an expression on his face that his Gran would no doubt have described as gormless. As far as Connor could tell, his boss had just taken the appearance of a ghost in the corner of the room entirely in his stride, thereby confirming Connor’s long-held opinion that Sir James Lester had ice in his veins rather than blood.

Connor felt a hand on his shoulder and gave a startled yelp. “Breathe, Conn, I think you’ll find it helps,” Becker advised quietly.

He sucked in a deep breath. OK, this could be going worse, much worse. Nothing had exploded yet, not even Lester, and it looked like he wouldn’t have quite as much explaining to do as he’d been expecting. “How did you know?” he asked, automatically checking the gyrations of the compass on his wrist.

“Contrary to popular opinion, I am actually a human being,” Lester replied, his eyes still fixed on Ryan’s now almost-solid form. “As a result even I need to visit the lavatory on occasion. And Captain Becker’s predecessor chose one such occasion to make his presence felt. A lesser man that myself might well have needed to take his suit to the cleaners as a result. Fortunately, I am made of sterner stuff. After that, Captain Ryan and I reached an understanding. I have to say, he is remarkably undemanding company when I’m working late.”

“That’s why you’ve had more computer problems than most people!” Connor exclaimed, a light bulb turning itself on in his brain without showering him with the fragments for once. “I thought you were just…” Connor closed his mouth in a hurry, instead of planting both feet somewhere irrevocable on the subject of his boss’s computer skills.

“Technologically inept?” Lester sniffed, fixing Connor with the sort of stare that made him think Lester had been a stoat in a past life. “Hardly. Oh do sit down, the pair of you. Staring up at Captain Becker is giving me a crick in the neck.” Lester waved one hand imperiously in the direction of the black leather sofa against one wall of his office. “You too, Ryan. Looming in corners and blowing up kettles needs to become a thing of the past. Our budget for replacement equipment isn’t the bottomless pit you seem to think it is.”

Wishing he could manage even a fraction of Lester’s composure, Connor shuffled over to the sofa and sat down, feeling like he always did when faced with his boss’s sarcasm – awkward and tongue tied. He watched, fascinated, as Ryan made an attempt to perch on the arm of the sofa. The proximity brought with it the prickle on Connor’s skin that he’d come to associate with Ryan’s presence. There had been some rare occasions when Ryan had managed to achieve a more substantial form, notably that night in his flat when Ryan had held him while he’d cried, but normally having him around felt like he was sitting in a very light breeze…

The more substantial Special Forces captain sitting on his right gave him a sharp nudge in the ribs, and Connor realised Lester was speaking again but before he cottoned on to what his boss was actually saying, the strident tones of the ADD issued out of the public address system, drowning out Lester’s words.

He jumped up, as did Becker, whilst at his side, Ryan looked affronted and said in a voice that seemed to echo inside Connor’s head, “Not guilty.”

Lester gave a long-suffering sigh. “I believe you, Captain, thousands wouldn’t. Well, go on, all three of you.” He made a shooing movement with his hands. “No doubt Captain Ryan can make himself useful rattling some chains or walking through walls, should the occasion demand it. I shall use the peace and quiet to draft some much-needed guidelines on the assimilation of incorporeal employees into the workplace. Now don’t let me keep any of you.”

With a helpless glance at the two Special Forces captains, Connor made a hasty exit from Lester’s office. It was fair to say that the meeting hadn’t quite turned out the way he’d been expecting and Connor was left wondering exactly what it would take to rattle the wretched man’s composure. The appearance of the Headless Horseman in the atrium, maybe?

From the look on his companions’ faces, they were both wondering the same thing.

* * * * *

The ADD had given them a location in the middle of London’s docklands and they arrived in convoy to find a sprawl of derelict buildings in an area intended for redevelopment as luxury flats, according to the artists’ impressions on the advertising hoardings.

The main gates were closed, but a pair of large bolt croppers wielded by Finn cut through the rusting chain without difficulty and gave them access to the site. The area was enclosed on one site by tall fences and open to the water on the other. Looking on the bright side, they wouldn’t have to contend with members of the public, but the down side was that they had a large area to search, filled with what looked like ancient, brick-built warehouses in an advanced state of decay.

Connor hauled his portable detector out of the van. He was still working on reducing their size and increasing the range, but for the moment, he had to carry something as big and heavy as a car battery, slung over his shoulder on a strap. He could see the slight shimmer in the air that denoted Ryan’s presence, but he was keeping his distance.

The rest of the team were all taking the inclusion of a ghost on the outing with a calmness that spoke volumes. They’d all had longer than Connor to get used to Ryan’s presence and he’d been on the receiving end of a surprising number of apologies on the journey from the ARC. He’d smiled ruefully and brushed them off, muttering that with his track record, he’d never be able to take the piss out of Cutter for obliviousness again.

“Can you narrow down where the anomaly is?” Becker asked, staring around at the crumbling buildings.

Connor stared down at the small screen in his hands and nodded. “It’s over there,” he said, pointing to the largest of the buildings.

The roof had long since fallen in and every single window was broken. An enormous pair of doors hung off their hinges, creaking in the cold wind that was whipping up small waves on the grey expanse of water.

A noise inside the building sent Finn down on one knee, his rifle pointed steadily at the doorway. It was a measure of Cutter’s faith in the soldiers that he no longer felt the need to issue a warning not to shoot unless lives were in danger. The other armed men fanned out in a formation that Connor had seen them adopt countless times. They were gaining maximum field of fire without being in danger of catching anyone in the crossfire. Ryan had drilled the squad well and Becker had carried on what his predecessor had started.

A large shape, almost three metres tall, bounded out of the doorway and stood there, blinking owlishly in the weak spring sunlight. Another three hopped out behind it and promptly scattered, bouncing across the weed-infested concrete like gigantic, spring-loaded toys.

Connor stared at them open-mouthed with surprise and delight. They looked like enormous kangaroos that had run full-tilt into a wall and squashed their faces.

“Procoptodons,” laughed Cutter. “Put your weapons down, lads. They’re grazing animals. Just don’t get in the way of their hind-feet, they’ll have a kick like a mule.”

“Where are they from?” Becker demanded. “And what else might be with them?”

“Pleistocene Australia,” Connor supplied. “That’s about two million years ago, give or take a million or so.” He watched one of the giant kangaroos hop over to a patch of scrubby grass that had broken through the hard surface of the yard and start to chew. “It was the age of megafauna – that’s big buggers, to you, Finn,” he added, earning himself a grin from the young soldier. “Think Skippy the Bush Kangaroo on steroids. These guys lived on grasslands. As well a them, we might find things that look like huge wombats, the size of bears, great big shaggy things. They might look fierce, but they’re only browsers.”

“So we herd them back through the anomaly,” Becker stated. “OK, let’s do our best sheepdog impressions. Kermit, Dane, get the nets and catchpoles out of the van. Stephen, Abby, tranq anything that we can’t catch, Lyle, cover them. Ditz, Blade, make sure nothing else comes through. And watch how you go, people, these buildings look like they’ll fall down if you so much as sneeze on them.”

The anomaly itself hung in the air in the middle of the derelict warehouse, with one of the procoptodons, a juvenile only about as tall as Connor, standing in front of it, looking puzzled. Its snub nose twitched in the dank air, which smelled of rotting wood and old sacks and, with a look of disgust on its squashed face, the creature turned around and promptly hopped back through the gently spinning ball of broken light, leaving Connor to wonder – not for the first time – what sort of attraction the anomalies exerted over living creatures.

“One down…” For once, Ryan’s words sounded like they’d issued out of a flesh and blood throat.

Connor turned around sharply. Ryan was standing next to him, a shaft of hazy sunlight from one of the windows falling across him, blurring his outline and making the soldier look like a photograph taken in soft focus. Connor stepped forward, hand outstretched, hoping against hope that he would encounter a solid form.

His hand passed through Ryan, meeting some slight resistance, but no more than he would have had from trailing his hand through the water cascading from a shower head. His skin prickled slightly and Connor fought hard to keep the disappointment from showing on his face.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “This is just making things worse for you, isn’t it?” He glanced over at the anomaly. “I know I should leave, Conn, but I don’t know where to go…”

“Don’t you bloody dare go anywhere!” Connor snapped. The words tumbled out of his mouth of their own volition before he could bite them back. “I lost you once and I don’t want to go through that again. Stay with me, Ryan, we’ll…” he hesitated, not really sure what to say, so he settled for turning the full force of his best puppy-dog impression on Ryan. “We’ll work something out.”

Ryan smiled but Connor could see the sadness on his face. The scientists at the ARC would be falling over themselves for the chance to examine Ryan and Connor knew it. What he didn’t know was whether he was just being selfish wanting Ryan to stick around. Did he really want his lover to be condemned to some sort of half-life just so Connor could cling to the past?

Connor shook himself. They were in the middle of an anomaly shout. It was hardly the time for that sort of introspection. Right now they had a herd of prehistoric giant kangaroos to round up and repatriate.

Fortunately, the creatures proved to be phlegmatic rather than skittish, staring at the soldiers and scientists out of dark, almond-shaped eyes, their large ears pricked and alert. A couple of the animals were female, carrying babies in their pouches, which even managed to produce an ‘Aw, cute’ reaction from the normally hard-eyed soldiers, who generally viewed just about every visitor from the past with deep suspicion.

As the anomaly had been open for at least an hour while they’d fought their way through the London traffic, Becker finally allowed the team to split up to search the buildings for any more procoptodons. The anomaly was showing signs of starting to weaken gradually, so time was now of the essence if they wanted to avoid returning to the ARC with a giant kangaroo for company.

With Ryan’s semi-solid mass at his side, Connor made his way over to one of the buildings by the waterside. He’d caught a glimpse of movement in the direction while he’d been watching Kermit and Blade succeed in netting one of the smaller animals that had been paying more attention to a clump of straggly weeds than to the two large, black-clad soldiers creeping up on it.

The smell of damp and decay was even more prevalent in this warehouse than the others. Rotted roof timbers lay scattered around a wooden floor and broken glass crunched under Connor’s boots. A large pile of what looked like feed sacks was heaped up against one wall and Connor saw something small and furry sniffing around the floor. Rats. He suppressed a shudder. He’d once managed to accidentally lock himself in his grandmother’s coal-house with a rat. It hadn’t been a happy experience and a flat-mate at uni who had kept fancy rats as pets had done nothing to rid him of his aversion. He didn’t like the way their little beady eyes stared at him.

The rat scuttled away through a hole in the floorboards and Connor breathed slightly more easily.

“Worried they’ll run up your legs?” Ryan’s teasing words slid over his skin like a cool breeze.

He turned a baleful glare on his insubstantial boyfriend. “Stop taking the piss. It was twitching its whiskers threateningly. Come on, this place gives me the creeps. Let’s check it out before I start screaming for Abby to rescue me.”

Ryan grinned and moved away into one of the darker corners. Connor wondered if ghosts could see in the dark like cats. Actually, he didn’t know whether cats could really see in the dark or not but…

The procoptodon leaped out from behind the pile of feed sacks, its massive hind legs striking the floorboards with a hollow thump. Connor staggered backwards, catching his foot on a twisted metal window frame and falling heavily. The wooden floor creaked ominously and, as Connor scrabbled to his feet, suddenly gave way, pitching him into darkness, the torch he’d been carrying flying from his grip as he plunged down into icy water accompanied by large baulks of timber and shards of glass.

Connor flailed wildly, trying – and failing – to get a grip on the floor as it collapsed around him. He landed awkwardly on what felt like a pile of old rubbish in a water-filled cellar. His startled yell was muffled by water that tasted unpleasantly of petrol as debris continued to rain down around him.

He struggled wildly, but something heavy was pinning his stomach down, making breathing difficult. Connor clutched at it, more concerned about keeping his head out of water than he was about the pain it was casing him. The sound of falling masonry made him wonder if the whole bloody building was coming down around his ears. He spat water out of his mouth and tried to yell for help, but all that happened was a red-hot flare of pain blooming underneath his ribs. The cry turned into nothing more than a croak.

Something struck him hard on the cheek. Connor’s head slipped down into the water and then the darkness closed in around him.


	3. Chapter 3

Becker’s earpiece crackled and he heard Blade’s voice announcing through the anomaly-induced static that another overgrown kangaroo had just been successfully sent home.

This shout hadn’t been too bad – by their standards. The worst they’d had by way of a casualty count had been a badly-winded Stephen, who’d been punched in the stomach by one of the creatures as they’d been hauling it back to the anomaly in a net. He’d no doubt have a few bruises to show for the encounter, but that was all.

Becker was standing in the middle of the cluster of decaying buildings, staring around, ticking off the ones they’d already checked from his mental list when the harsh cry of a seagull drew his attention. Several of the birds had been perched on the roof of one of the larger warehouses but were now flapping away, mewling in irritation. The source of their disturbance became obvious a few moments later as the sound of falling bricks echoed inside the ruin. Becker grimaced. The whole bloody place was coming apart at the seams. At this rate most of the buildings would be a heap of rubble before the bulldozers even moved in.

A procoptodon came bounding out of the building. Becker acted on instinct and swung his Mossberg 590 off his shoulder as he got ready to chamber a round. The beast hopped straight towards him, covering the ground as though it was had springs on its paws, or whatever you called a kangaroo’s feet.

Becker stepped aside and spoke into his throat mike. “There’s a skippy heading your way, Lyle. Lay out a welcome mat, will you?”

Lyle’s reply was only just recognisable through the static buzz, but Becker caught enough to know his message had been heard. He was about to demand a sit rep from the rest of the team when a prickle in his fingertips betrayed Ryan’s presence in the immediate vicinity. A sudden sense of urgency gripped Becker and without even knowing why, he started running towards the building that had just disgorged the procoptodon, a dark shadow matching him step for step.

Becker hesitated just outside the doorway, viewing the crumbling warehouse with some trepidation. It looked like part of an internal wall had come down, taking out a section of floor in the process. The air was full of brick dust and the smell of rotting wood. He flicked on the barrel-mounted torch attachment on his combat shotgun sending a beam of light across the debris-strewn floor. Rats scurried for cover.

The torchlight illuminated Ryan’s semi-solid form standing now on the edge of a gaping hole in the floor, with jagged roof-beams poking out of it like blackened, broken limbs.

Ryan pointed down into the hole and, in a voice that sounded like winter wind, Becker heard him say, “Connor!”

“Fuck.” Becker made his way carefully across the floor, conscious that it was creaking ominously with every step he took. “We have a man down!” He spoke quickly into his radio, but only a burst of static greeted his words. He swore under his breath and carried on edging forwards. Anomaly-fouled comms were the bane of their bloody lives and today was obviously going to be no exception. He yelled the same words as loudly as he could in the hope that someone was near enough to hear, but from the look of agitation on Ryan’s face, there was no time to go in search of help.

The floorboards creaked again like breaking ice. Becker went down on his hands and knees to spread his weight and crawled towards the hole. The gun-mounted torch illuminated a horrific tangle of broken joists and fallen bricks and glinted off the swirls of oil lying on top of dark river water. But what caught his attention with the force of a steel trap closing on his mind was the sight of one gloved hand, floating listlessly on the surface of the water.

Becker swore violently and, without even stopping to think, swung his legs into the hole and dropped down into the water. The cold took his breath away and he floundered amongst the debris, grabbing for Connor’s hand and trying to pull him up to the surface.

In the dim light reaching into the flooded area underneath the rotting floor he saw Connor’s deathly pale face break the surface of the water, dark hair plastered across his face, eyes closed, mouth partly open.

“Fucking shit!” Becker managed to get foothold on something and tried to get his hands under Connor’s armpits to haul him out of the water. His efforts brought about an absolutely zero result. “Ryan, for fuck’s sake, he’s trapped!”

Becker stared around desperately, looking for something he could use to keep Connor’s head out of the water while he tried to shift the debris off his chest and legs. A section of broken floorboard floated on top of the foul-smelling water. Becker grabbed it and tried to wedge it behind Connor’s head. He couldn’t even tell if the young man was breathing or not.

The rubble and wood in the water shifted ominously and a brick fell from somewhere, narrowly missing Connor’s face. But it obviously wasn’t the only one that had fallen close to him. Blood was running sluggishly from a jagged wound on Connor’s cheek and it looked like he had another cut close to his hairline. Becker propped him up as best he could and felt with his hands beneath the water to try to discover what was pinning him now. His fingers encountered what felt like a metal girder pressing down onto Connor’s hips. He tugged at it experimentally and felt it give fractionally, but not enough to enable him to drag Connor free.

He floundered in the water in the water, looking for something to use as a lever. “Ryan, get help!”

He had no idea if the ghost was still there or not, but he didn’t think Ryan would have deserted his young lover in a situation like this. Becker was too chilled from the water to feel Ryan’s presence, but he could feel a heightened sense of urgency pressing in on him and guessed that the ghost’s agitation was somehow transmitting to him.

“For fuck’s sake, I need some help here fast!” Becker reached down again and grabbed hold of the girder. He wedged his feet against a pile of rubble under water and heaved. The girder shifted again, but still not enough. He gritted his teeth and strained against it, feeling the muscles in his shoulders harden with the struggle.

The sight of Connor’s deathly pale face, lolling in the water, acted as a spur to Becker, but he still couldn’t shift the heavy bar.

“Get Ditzy! I need rope and I need it now!” The sudden emptiness in the air told its own tale. Becker was alone apart from Connor’s still form. Becker wondered for a minute if he should try breathing some air into Connor’s lungs, but overriding everything else was the knowledge that he had to shift the girder and get Connor out of the water so they could work on him properly.

With renewed desperation, Becker threw himself back into the task, heaving and tugging at the metalwork, heedless of the debris pile moving around him and the sound of more objects falling into the water. Something struck him on the shoulder but he shrugged it off. The girder shifted again and for a moment Becker’s hopes flared and he tried tugging again at Connor’s limp form, but all did was dislodge the plank of wood that had been preventing his head slipping back under the water.

Becker swore under his breath again and tried to jam the plank back into position. A moment later he felt a prickle of static electricity on his skin. The sensation raised the hairs on the back of his neck, but went some way to counteracting the bone-numbing cold of the water.

“Ryan?”

“They’re coming.” The voice sounded like it was inside his head. “But they won’t be soon enough. We need to get him out now. Let me in, Becker. Between us we can shift it.”

Becker stared into the darkness. “What do you mean?”

“Let me in,” Ryan’s voice was low and compulsive and Becker could feel the tug of an unearthly power. “Trust me, Becker. If you don’t, we’ll lose him. He’s still alive, I can feel it, but he won’t be if we wait for the others. Trust me!”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Let me in…” As Ryan’s voice sounded in his head, Becker felt that familiar static prickle along his skin. He forced himself to relax, but it wasn’t easy. He had a precarious footing on a mostly submerged pile of rubble and Connor was dying – possibly dead – not exactly circumstances in which relaxing came easily. He sucked in a deep breath and expelled it as slowly as he could. The prickle on his skin sank deeper and for a moment every nerve flamed inside him. He felt like he was viewing events from somewhere in the back of his head, distant and getting more so by the second…

“Don’t fight me!”

Ryan’s voice was definitely inside his head now and, with a sudden sick certainty, Becker knew that he was no longer in control of his own actions. His hands sunk down under the surface of the water and gripped the metal girder again. Becker’s feet shifted on the rubble and moved into a better stance and then he leaned back and pulled with a strength that he knew wasn’t his own. He could feel Ryan inside his head, inside his body, taking command, directing his limbs. He felt the girder start to move.

Ryan sent more strength flooding into Becker’s body and he... they… heaved for a second time. More rubble started to fall as the girder shifted abruptly. Becker felt his muscles straining against the weight of the trapped beam and wondered vaguely how far Ryan was capable of forcing his body into action.

“Trust me, Becker.” The voice was that of a man well-used to commanding others and in spite of his own fears Becker knew that he did trust Ryan. Although he’d never met the man while he was still alive, Becker had worked closely with enough men who had known Ryan, trusted him and even loved him. It was a good enough testimonial for him. It would have to be.

Becker lowered defences he hadn’t even known he possessed, letting Ryan come fully into both his body and his mind.

A final heave wrenched the girder free of whatever was holding it down. Connor’s limp form slipped sideways. Becker was dimly conscious of shoving the girder to one side and grabbing a handful of wet clothes, heaving the unconscious form out of the water.

Connor was too white, too cold. His head flopped lifelessly on his shoulders, dirty water streaming from his dark hair.

Ryan hauled him up and stared up at the hole in the floor. By now Becker was merely an onlooker, watching what was going on through his own eyes, but not directing the actions of his own body.

“Ditzy, I need some fucking help here!” The words came out of Becker’s mouth but it didn’t sound like his voice.

“With you, boss.” The medic’s voice was as calm as ever.

Hands reached down and grabbed at Connor’s jacket. Ryan – Becker – struggled upright on the ever-shifting pile of debris. More bricks and rubble started to slip into the water and above them the wooden flooring creaked even more ominously than it had already been doing. Another surge of strength rippled through Becker’s body and Connor was hoisted into the air, boosted from below and pulled from above. Water cascaded off his limp body and the splintered wood snatched at his clothing and then he was pulled out of sight.

The debris pile started to slide, shifting like quicksand, Becker felt himself slipping and something struck him in the back, sending him face down in the water. His black combat gear was sodden and heavy, pulling him down. Water flooded his nose and mouth and a numbing cold was seeping into his bones. Around him unseen walls started to close in…

“Boss!” The part of Becker’s mind that was still capable of independent thought registered that the new voice was Blade’s and it was invested with an unhealthy urgency. “The whole fucking place is about to come down. Grab my hand!”

His limbs moved almost of their own volition, but Becker knew that Ryan was still in control. He struggled upright, got a foot on… something and stretched his arms upwards. A hand grabbed his wrist and tugged. Fingers gripped the straps of his equipment vest and Becker felt himself being pulled out of the water. Wood snagged at his clothing and he felt – and heard – material ripping but the cold had numbed his flesh and if anything more than his clothing had been damaged, he was too far gone to notice.

He struggled to his hands and knees, shaking off the hands that had pulled him clear of the hole. “Connor!”

“Outside, boss,” Blade told him, getting an arm around him and hauling him to his feet. “Come on, that’s where we need to be as well…”

With Blade’s assistance, he moved at a lurching run, dodging more falling debris. The whole bloody building seemed to be collapsing in on itself. They made it out into the courtyard, where a press of bodies screened whatever was going on from their eyes. Becker felt a surge of fear but didn’t know if it was his own emotion or Ryan’s, or a mixture of both. He shouldered his way past a clearly anxious Cutter without even a muttered apology.

Connor’s lifeless body was stretched out in a damp puddle on the weed-broken concrete. Ditzy was kneeling at his side, his face set in a determined mask as he performed chest compressions.

Hope surged in Becker’s own chest. He knew – without knowing how he knew – that Connor was still alive. He could feel it, a small spark of life that the medic was working hard to reignite. He dropped to his knees next to them and reached out to cradle Connor’s limp hand in his own.

Ditzy met his eyes. The normally imperturbable medic blanched. “Ryan…?”

“Save him, David. Bring him back…” Ryan spoke through him, but Becker threw his own entreaty into the words. Since his secondment to the anomaly project, Becker had gradually come to view all of the civilian members of the team as not just his responsibility but his friends as well, even the irascible Cutter and his reserved, sometimes remote, assistant, Stephen Hart. As for the younger members of the team, it was impossible not to know Connor and Abby without warming to them.

Ditzy nodded and bent his head to exhale into Connor’s mouth, before returning again to the chest compressions.

Ryan gripped his lover’s hand harder and Becker felt some of the strength ebb from his own body. He didn’t know what means of energy transference Ryan had employed down in the water-filled hole, but somehow the ghost had been able to take over and direct his actions, lending him strength in a way that Becker didn’t understand.

And if it had worked once…

Becker fought against fog that had settled on his mind, thrusting his own consciousness against Ryan’s, trying to open a link direct to the man who lay on the ground in front of them, the object of Ditzy’s single-minded efforts.

For a brief moment he felt Ryan resist him. “Don’t fight me, you idiot!” Becker had no idea whether he’d spoken those words aloud or in his own head, but either way, they were effective. Ryan pulled back, this time letting Becker direct their combined efforts. Energy prickled along Becker’s skin and he let it flow down into his fingers and into Connor’s too-still body.

Ditzy pressed hard and rhythmically on Connor’s chest.

Becker felt his own energy start to dwindle but, calmly and deliberately, he kept the link open. It was though he’d succeeded in opening one of his own veins and was letting the blood pour directly into Connor’s body. His head swum and he felt his own consciousness slipping away, but it didn’t matter. It was his job to keep the team alive and to hell with the personal cost…

He could feel Ryan lending him strength and between them they were succeeding in holding onto to that small, weakening spark of life, but Becker knew it would take everything he had to give and more. “Let me do this, Ryan,” he begged, the words forming in his own head where he knew Ryan could hear them. “Let me do this for him…let me go…”

He felt Ryan’s dilemma but Becker knew that even if it took whatever strength remained to him then he was willing to pay that price and he knew that even if it took whatever remained of Ryan’s own energy as well then that price too would be paid. Between them they could do this…

From somewhere, Becker heard a voice yelling urgently for Cutter. He was conscious of the people around them shifting position, attention divided, however unwillingly.

“Professor! The anomaly is flaring!” That was Lyle and the lieutenant’s shout held an urgency that Becker had rarely heard from him. In his experience Lyle was ice-cold under pressure, but something had broken through his normal composure.

Becker’s skin suddenly felt like it was on fire, heat surged through his body, driving the cold of his unexpected immersion in freezing water out of his limbs and replacing it with a sudden flush. For one sickening moment Becker thought he’d lost control of his bladder as his senses swam and he rocked on his heels. Strong hands steadied his shoulders and kept him from falling.

“The magnetism’s gone fucking crazy!” Lyle’s voice again, followed by the sound of boots on the concrete. Someone was running…

Becker felt like he’d been caught in a flashover as every nerve ending in his body ignited sending white hot pain through him. Only Ryan’s relentless hold on his mind held him back from the brink of unconsciousness. A jolt of energy leapt through his body and into Connor’s via their joined hands. A moment later, Connor convulsed under Ditzy’s ministration, his back arching off the ground as though he’d been hit by a jolt of electricity.

“Get out of there!” Even through the black haze crowding his mind, Becker recognised the fear in Cutter’s voice. Something was wrong with the anomaly and – with Ryan’s presence in both his body and his mind – electromagnetic energy was being transmitted through their link and into Connor’s body.

A second jolt followed the first, ripping a silent scream for Becker’s mouth and lifting Connor’s chest for a second time. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Connor’s eyes flew open and he coughed, expelling water from his body and replacing it with air in one long, shuddering breath.

Ditzy grabbed his shoulders and turned Connor onto his side, holding him while he coughed and choked and coughed again, spitting out more water, his body shaking with the effort.

He was alive, he was fucking alive! A wild exultation coursed through Becker’s body. All he wanted was to take Connor in his arms and hold him until the spasms had passed. He reached out with both hands and, to his surprise, the medic surrendered Connor’s still-heaving body to him and he held his lover – no, Ryan’s lover – close to his chest and stroked the wet hair back from a face that he wanted to shower with kisses.

Connor blinked up at him, his pupils so wide that his eyes appeared almost black. Shock slid into something else, an expression that Becker had never seen on Connor’s face before… an expression he’d sometimes wondered if he’d ever get to see…

“Tom?” Connor’s voice was hoarse with coughing. “Tom…”

Warmth flooded Becker’s body again, although with less dramatic consequences this time. Compelled by a force that he would have had no chance of resisting even if he’d wanted to, Becker bent his head and kissed Connor lightly on the lips. Connor kissed him back. It was a kiss fuelled by desperation and something else, something that had never existed in any kiss Becker had shared before – something which certainly hadn’t been present on the only drunken occasion he’d ever kissed a member of his own sex.

Then Becker felt Ryan draw them both back while he watched anxiously as Connor started coughing again.

“Give him some space, boss,” Ditzy said quietly and Becker knew the medic was talking to Ryan, not him. For all that Becker thought he’d at least managed to earn the respect of the military team, none of them had ever addressed him like that before. He was still too new in his rank for that. He wondered what the hell the others were actually seeing when they looked at him.

Around him, Becker heard a babble of voices, some passing the message that Connor had come round, others relaying the fact that after its sudden flare, the anomaly had now closed. It also appeared that the last of the giant kangaroos had been successfully sent home.

He felt Ryan withdraw from his mind, taking with him the last of the strength that was keeping Becker upright. Weariness hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. Becker swayed and fell… unconscious before he even hit the ground.

* * * * *

Becker opened his eyes and fought down a feeling of nausea. He was cold, wet, uncomfortable and desperately tired.

“Welcome back, sir.” Ditzy gave him a reassuring smile. “We were just about to strip you down. The lads are pulling straws to see who got the job of warming you up.”

“Finn just lost!” Amusement – and relief – were present in equal measure in Lyle’s voice. “Bad luck, mate.”

Becker tried to sit upright and failed when another wave of sickness rolled through him. He was in the back of one of the vans and it looked like he’d been dumped unceremoniously on top of a pile of ropes and other kit, but he presumed their priority had been to get him out of the breeze to reduce the wind-chill factor.

“Connor, is he…?”

“I’m fine,” Connor replied at his side.

Becker turned his head, wincing at the pull of cramped muscles in his neck and shoulders, to find Connor swathed in a blanket over the top of a set of obviously borrowed black combat kit several sizes too large for him.

“Thanks, Becker.” Connor hesitated then gave Becker’s hand a squeeze. “Tom told me what you were prepared to do.”

“We thought we’d lost you for a moment back there, sir,” Ditzy said quietly. “Between the pair of you I think I’ve just aged ten years. If I have to start pulling out grey hairs to maintain my boyish good looks, I’m not going to be please.”

“What the fuck happened?”

Ditzy shrugged. “Buggered if I know. Looks like the anomaly flared up the way it did when we were bringing the boss’s body back through, the same way it did that other time in the Forest of Dean when we all saw him…” he gave a quick grin at Connor. “Or rather when everyone but Connor saw him…”

“Yeah, last to know, as ever,” Connor muttered. “My best guess is that the anomaly threw out some sort of electromagnetic pulse and…”

“…instead of frying Connor’s brains it kick-started his heart,” Ditzy finished for him, shooting Connor a rueful grin. “Which is fucking lucky for you, sunshine. You’d stopped breathing and there was no discernable pulse. Even if this lot didn’t realise it, I was just going through the fucking motions. The chances of bringing someone back with nothing more than CPR are sod-all out of sod-all.”

Becker stared up at the pair of them, a thousand questions that he was just too tired to articulate buzzing like hornets in his mind. He settled for asking, “Where’s Ryan?”

“Outside with Lyle,” Ditzy told him. “He didn’t want you to think you’d shuffled off the mortal coil if the first thing you saw when you came round was him, but he’ll have to make himself scarce in a minute, there’s an ambulance on its way.”

Becker got his elbows underneath him and managed to push himself into a sitting position. “Is he…?” He wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to say, but he thought asking whether a ghost was all right would sound strange even to someone who now chased dinosaurs for a living.

“He’s fading in and out,” Ditzy supplied. “But I don’t think he’s going anywhere. Cutter’s out there with him, giving him the third degree about what the fuck happened, so I reckon the Prof will be having a science-gasm pretty soon.”

“Too much info, Ditz,” Becker muttered. “Can I have a word with him?” He glanced at both Ditzy and Connor and added, “On my own.”

“Only if you promise to let me get you naked afterwards,” Ditzy replied.

Becker laughed weakly. “Didn’t realise you swung that way, sweetie. OK, it’s a deal, but tell Finn his services aren’t required.”

“The lad’ll be gutted,” the medic laughed. “He thought he was about to break this week’s duck on getting up close and personal with someone.”

“Then cuddle him yourself.”

Ditzy opened the back door of the van and jumped out. Becker shivered in the sudden waft of cold air.

“Here, you need this more than me,” Connor said quietly, draping the blanket around Becker’s shoulders. He opened his mouth to speak again and then closed it without saying anything.

The memory of those lips, soft under his, flooded back into Becker’s mind and he felt a flush rising in his cheeks. He fought against the urge to pull Connor into his arms and kiss those same pale lips until the colour came back into them. As Connor slipped out of the van after Ditzy, to be replaced by a dark shadow that sent a familiar prickle back into Becker’s skin, he sighed, fighting against the knowledge that he’d just experienced the urges of his own body, not Ryan’s. The fact that he’d never actually fancied another man before was something he was going to have to deal with in his own time, when he wasn’t more than halfway to a hypothermic stupor. Whether his feelings were just the legacy of Ryan’s possession of his mind and body or whether it something else. Becker didn’t know, and he was too knackered to think about it now.

“Thanks for not kicking me out of my own body,” he said quietly.

Ryan smiled and shook his head. “I told you to trust me. I wouldn’t have done anything like that.”

“But you could have done. It was you they were all seeing back there. Not me. I’m not an idiot, Ryan. You could have kept control and I wouldn’t have been able to stop you, especially not when the anomaly went super-nova. But you didn’t.”

And now they’d all have to live with the consequences of that.

Ryan smiled again and held out his hand.

Becker gripped it and for a brief moment it felt like he had hold of flesh and blood and then the feeling faded.

Outside the confines of the van the wail of an ambulance siren split the silence.

“Lester wants a report.” He was now back to hearing Ryan inside his head again.

“Lester always wants a report,” Becker muttered. “I’ll leave this one to you and Cutter.”

Ryan’s smile slid into a grin and he vanished, leaving Becker alone amidst the sudden bustle of paramedics that appeared in the doors of the van. And later, when Connor’s cold fingers twined with his in the ambulance on their way to hospital, Becker felt no inclination to draw away.

There’d be plenty of time to over-think what had happened later, but for now Becker was just content to go with the flow.


End file.
